


A Place Both Near and Far

by chakimcai



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, some strong language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chakimcai/pseuds/chakimcai
Summary: After her head injury, Clove is transported back to District 2 as it was in 1989 and makes a new friend. Meanwhile, Cato, still in the arena, has a direct encounter with God. Will they find each other again?





	1. Chapter 1

I stir slightly, my head pounding from being rammed into the Cornucopia. Why can't I just die already?! I feel someone trying to shake me awake. It must be Cato.

"Hey," he says. His voice sounds funny. "Hey, lady, this is no place for a nap. I got paying customers tryin’ to get in here." OK, that doesn't make any sense. I mumble Cato's name and slowly open my eyes. A boy, about my age, is hovering over me, but I don't recognize him. He certainly isn't one of the remaining Tributes. He's neatly dressed and has no murderous look in his eyes. Nonetheless, I start screaming.

"Easy now, lady. I ain't gonna hurt you," he says. He grabs my hand. "Let me help you up, and we'll go in the shop. Mom's got pies in the oven. I'll fix you a cup of coffee." He seems nice enough, but not too bright, if he can't see I'm badly hurt. What makes him think I can get up, even with help? I'll pretend to try, if that's what it takes to get the point across.

In spite of my injuries, I find it surprisingly easy to get to my feet. I look around for the first time and see that I have been lying on concrete, in front of a row of small stores. None of this is familiar. Obviously I'm no longer in the arena, but I haven't been brought home, either. "What district is this?" I ask. "I'm from District 2. My name's Clove."

"Nice to meet you, Clove. I'm Tony," the boy says. "This 'district,' as you call it, is Albuquerque, New Mexico."

My heart nearly stops. "It - it's what?"

Tony repeats the old name of a part of District 2 as I stare at him in shock. “Keep your voice down,” I whisper. “Peacekeepers are always watching us. There's no telling what they'll do if they hear you talking like that.”

“Peacekeepers?” Tony frowns. “You mean policemen? Should I be worried? Because last time I checked, it wasn't illegal to say -” he lowers his voice - “Albuquerque.” Fine, I know when I'm being laughed at. What I don't know is why, if this is District 2, it looks so different than it did a month ago when Cato and I left for the Capitol. And this guy seems never to have heard of Peacekeepers...? Why do I get the feeling he doesn't know what the Hunger Games are, either?

”Never mind,” I say. I've had too much taken out of me to waste energy trying to explain things to him. "Now what about that pie and coffee? I'm starving.”

“I thought you'd never ask,” Tony says, grinning. He takes me by the arm and leads me into the shop. I notice the sign in the window. Strickland's Bakery. That's Cato's last name. I wonder how he's holding up. There is a television inside. I ask Tony to turn it on. I don't understand how it hasn't been on already. Everyone knows, or should know, that watching the Hunger Games is mandatory. These people are just asking for trouble. Still, I think I kind of admire their rebellious streak.

"Sorry this old thing only picks up one channel, ” Tony apologizes. "We don't have the money even to pay for a better antenna, much less cable.”

I stare at the set blankly. What am I watching here? Little kids laughing and sliding down a slide, and there's some kind of song: "Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away..." And what was Tony talking about? Only one channel exists anyway, and...it isn't this. Suddenly the best food I've ever tasted becomes very hard to swallow as the realization of what's happening to me hits me full force.


	2. Chapter 2

I heard Clove screaming for me, but I can't find her. I can't find a shred of evidence anywhere that she ever even existed. That guy from Eleven, he’s good. In all my years of training I never learned how to make a corpse disappear so neatly.

There he goes now. He's not gonna get away with this.

I run after him, my knife ready in hand; he runs faster. Damn, I wish I could throw like Clove. I might just have to wait for the right moment to sneak up on him and stab him. I'm tired and hungry, anyway. I spot Katniss about thirty feet away, cooking some kind of meat. I don't care what it is, I want it. I go to sneak up on her so I can kill her and take whatever it is she's got.

She sees me, too. She's getting up and calmly walking towards me. I notice that she's left her weapons. “Hi, Cato,” she says. ”I’m so sorry about Clove.”

Yeah, right. ”You think you're going to soften me up, make me not want to kill you? Is that your game?” I say. “It’s your fault she’s dead, you know. And that little girl you adopted, her death is your fault too. You didn't think your actions all the way through. You made her a bigger target than she would have been if you left her alone. If you hadn't interfered she could have stayed out of sight, let the rest of us kill each other and won without having to do a damn thing.”

I hate the way I said that, but it's really true. There's no room to let yourself love anyone in this place. Up until the rule change, I was working out in my mind how I was going to kill Clove. I’m sure Katniss never prepared herself for the possibility of having to kill Peeta, or even the little girl.

“Not true,” Katniss counters. “She could have stayed hidden from us, yes. But not from the Gamemakers and all their evil traps. I think I did the best I could have done for her, all things considered. I don't like being responsible for anyone's death, either directly or indirectly. Don't misunderstand me, I'm fully prepared to fight you if that's what you want. Right now, though, I want to do this.” She hugs me. And I think she means it. I could very easily stab her in the back right now. But I won't. I don't play that way. I'll get her tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

“What’s wrong, Clove?” Tony asks. “I’m aware most teenagers wouldn't be caught dead watching Sesame Street, but you look positively horrified.”

“Oh yeah, Sesame Street. Way uncool, Tony,” I scoff, though I never heard of it before. From what I can gather, it's a television program just for very young children. Back home we have nothing like that, but I'm not sure I want to let on. I try to change my expression of shock and distress to one of contempt. 

He looks at me suspiciously. “Um... right. Well, I'll just turn the TV off, then, and you can tell me about your home. District 2, is it? That sounds kind of creepy.”

“Oh, it's not so bad. We are very privileged there, in fact. Every child receives extensive training in weaponry and hand to hand combat. I graduated three years early.”

“No foolin'?” Tony’s eyes get wide. “What do y'all do that for?”

I wasn't expecting him to ask me that. I fidget uneasily. It's not that I'm ashamed of the answer, but I really like him, and it is a nice change to meet somebody who knows nothing of what I've done. And then it hits me. I _am_ ashamed of the answer.

Tony knows it, too. He immediately calls me out on it. “Clove, if you're hiding something, tell me now. I don't give Mom's prize-winning pecan pie away to liars.”

“Fine,” I say. “How much do I owe you, then?”

“Sorry, I don't sell it to liars either. It's much too good for that,” he responds smartly.

I press my lips together, then slowly exhale. “Do you sell it to murderers?”

At first he seems startled by the question, and then he starts to laugh. “I get what you're tryin' to do here. You put a worst-case scenario in front of me so I’ll be distracted from the real problem. No dice, Clove. If that's your real name.”

He doesn't believe anything I've said to him, that much is obvious. I push my nearly full plate and cup away and walk out of there. Oh, I'm not mad at him. If I were him I probably wouldn't believe me either. There's just nothing else I can do or say. I don't know where I'm going. I just hope to find something, anything, that I recognize around here. I explore for hours. Everything I see now is completely obliterated in my own time. Except...


	4. Chapter 4

Katniss runs off and leaves me alone; I still have nothing to eat. I quickly regret my decision, but now I don't have enough strength to chase her. She shouldn't have hugged me like that. It just makes it that much harder for me not to cry.

She'd like that, wouldn't she? Everyone in Panem would be talking about it. Cato, the former badass from District 2, now a pathetic snivelling weakling. 

A package floats down from the sky and lands at my feet. It contains a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple. There's also a note: “Here’s a little something to help get you through the night. Your friends, Brutus and Enobaria. P.S. What the hell was that?”

I finally break down now. I can't help it. “So I don't get to eat without a lecture now? More of the same shit I've heard all my life?” I shout at my mentors, my parents, President Snow, everyone. ”You're gonna get on to me for missing a kill? Well, why don't I just kill this sandwich?” I ball it up in my fist, throw it down and stomp on it. I do likewise with the apple, right after I cut it up in a thousand pieces.


	5. Chapter 5

“It really sucks they had to die so young, doesn't it?"

Surprised, I turn around from the headstone I’ve been studying. It belongs to a fourteen year old boy - a Brian Coleman, April 18, 1917 - January 11, 1932. There are about twenty others here, all belonging to children, but I've been especially fixated on this one. “You followed me here? ” I say.

“Of course I didn't follow you,” Tony says. “I come here all the time, mostly after I have a disagreement with Mom and Dad. I can think about what these kids must have suffered and how good we have it nowadays. By the way, I brought you something.” He hands me a box, I open it. It‘s the slice of pie I left.

“All right.” I let out a long breath. “You want me to tell you everything? I've killed people. Other kids, around my own age. That's what I spent my whole life training for.” Tears are running down my face now. I see in Tony’s face a combination of sympathy and fear.

He speaks one word: “Why?”

I explain it to him the best way I know how, beginning with what's happened - that is, what _will_ happen - to North America. Much of it, I hate to say, is simply a recitation of propaganda from the Capitol. As crazy as it all must sound to him, I can tell that he believes me. “So,” I conclude, “right before I mysteriously ended up here, I had my head slammed into a rock by a guy twice my size. But I guess I deserved that.”

“I'll say,” Tony laughs. “Let that be a lesson to you, young lady.”

I laugh too. If my mentor, Enobaria, knew I was alive right now, she’d be telling me the same thing, but probably for a different reason.

He takes a red box out of his shirt pocket. Marlboro, it says. He offers me one. I pull one out and examine it. It doesn't look edible. "Never mind," he says, snatching the strange stick from my hand. "It's better not to." Once I see what he does with it, I decide he’s probably right. The smoke bothers my nose and throat. My thoughts turn back to Cato and the smoke also starts to bother my eyes.

I think Tony mistakes this for crying, because he extinguishes his smoky stick and pulls me into a hug. And now I really am crying. “You shouldn't be so nice to me,” I sob. “I'm horrible. I don't deserve for anyone to be nice to me.”

He lifts my head up and looks at me. “I don't think you're horrible. You did things you shouldn't have done. But you got a second chance. And as long as you're here with me, then technically you haven't killed anyone yet, am I right?” I laugh a little. The logic is flawed, but I appreciate the sentiment behind it. “Well, all right then,” he says. “Don’t cry any more. I like you better laughing. Um...at things that are actually funny, that is.” Ouch. He didn't see the sadistic evil cackle I shared with Cato, Glimmer and Marvel after we killed the girl from Eight, but I'm sure he can imagine it.


	6. Chapter 6

Now that I've destroyed the last meal my sponsors are likely to send me, I have no choice but to try my hand at hunting. I don't have much experience at it, but I think I can remember the large trap Marvel rigged for Katniss and the little girl. I can make a small one and catch a squirrel or a rabbit or something. I look for the trap so I can take it apart and redo it. I can't remember exactly where it was, all I can think about is how long it's been since I ate anything. I get dizzier and dizzier until I faint.

My mind must really not be right, because I wake up with a strong feeling that Clove is alive somewhere. I also find a few slices of cooked meat on a makeshift plate made of leaves. I'm hungry enough not to want to question where it came from, though it could be that Katniss is trying to poison me. I eat it anyway.

Now I see some words scratched in the dirt. They're kind of hard to read. Let's see...“I stole this for you. Just getting in one more good deed before I die. Finch, District 5.” That sounds like a suicide note. I quickly rub it out and hope no one in the Capitol saw that.

The cannon goes off and the picture of the girl from Five appears in the sky. I'd forgotten all about her. How many times did she secretly help me? And who else did she help?

The picture fades away and is replaced by a strange image of a very kind-looking young man and words I don't understand. For some reason, though, I like the way they sound and I start to read them out loud. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." As soon I finish, I find myself inches from being attacked by four of the most terrifying dogs I have ever seen. I jump up and run as fast as I can. The dogs chase me, barking and growling. My heart beats very fast. I trip on a rock and fall. The dogs surround me, ready to rip me apart. 


	7. Chapter 7

"So how did these kids die?" I ask.

Tony shrugs and lights another one of his Marlboro thingies. "I don't know. I guess they were underfed, or very sick. It was a rough time for a lot of people back then." I nod and silently wonder if their government deliberately caused their suffering. "I'm kind of tired about talking about dead kids," he goes on, "and from what you've told me, it sounds like you've had more than your fill of that too."

No, I haven't. Have I? I'm really confused right now. "Stop it," I burst out angrily. "Ever since you found me and woke me up all you've done is make me feel bad. I never cried before, did you know that? I was perfectly happy my whole life thinking it was fun to kill people. When my name was picked at the Reaping I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to get into the arena and show the whole world my skills with knives."

"And what did that get you?" Tony is clearly losing patience with me. "You're stuck in a place you don't know - a better place than yours, I"m sure, but that's beside the point. Your family thinks you're dead and we have no way to let them know you're not. Tell me, where is the fun and happiness in that?"

He's right. Everything he's been saying is right. Unfortunately I don't want to hear it. I just want to be alone and think for a while. "You should probably get back to work now," I say flatly. "It was nice meeting you. Bye, Tony."

"Bye, Clove." He looks sad as he walks to his car. Did I really hurt him, or is he just sorry he can't help me?

Well, I think my family is better off thinking I'm dead, anyway. Even if I knew how to get back home, I couldn't possibly just show up there after everyone saw what happened. I'd be accused of cheating, or tricking the Capitol, and the consequences for my family would be horrific.

I walk away in the opposite direction, toward the only familiar building around here. It's the Academy where I trained for the Hunger Games. I don't know what the building is used for now, and I really don't care.


	8. Chapter 8

"Blaze! Beowulf! Biter! Boxer!" As the snarling dogs begin to overpower me, I find myself speaking what is apparently their names. "Stop. Gentle." I sense that the words are not my own, but those of a greater power which is speaking through me. With a collective whine, they immediately obey. I don't believe this. It has to be one of the Gamemakers' tricks. I brace myself for another attack.

But all they do is sit and look cute at me. "Play ball with us," they seem to be saying in their own canine way.

"I don't have a ball. Sorry, guys," I answer back. One of them runs off, then returns with an empty tracker jacker nest. He drops it at my feet. "Ball," I hear him say. The other dogs bark in agreement. This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I have a feeling that no one in the Capitol is making this happen. But I don't know who can override them, or what he means to accomplish, and that's kind of unsettling. 


End file.
